Storm Eleanor, which lashed Plymouth last weekend, has left the region’s beaches looking like “a plastic war zone”.

Across the region, millions of pieces of plastic litter the tideline. Beaches all around the coast have been covered with plastic debris, broken fishing nets, pieces of Lego and everything from plastic straws and bottles to shredded bags and polysterene.

“We haven’t seen such plastic devastation since Storm Hercules in 2014,” Hugo Tagholm, chief executive of Surfers Against Sewage, said.

Mr Tagholm, speaking from the beach at Perranporth in Cornwall, said: “It’s a plastic war zone. This has happened all around the South West.

A couple returned from the cruise to find the tree in their garden in Ivybridge

“We have had thousands of our volunteers out tackling the plastic tide, but we need to cut the flow of plastic at source. This pollution causes harm and ruins the beautiful beaches the South West relies on.”

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Claire Wallerstein, organiser of Rame Peninsula Beach Care, said the condition of beaches in South East Cornwall was “pretty horrendous”. She added: “It looks like confetti has been thrown all over the beaches.”

She said much of the big pieces of plastic has been cleared in previous beach cleans, leaving tiny fragments that are too small to collect.

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“It’s overwhelming. There must be millions and millions of pieces and each one is capable of killing birds and fish. Beach cleaning is good for awareness raising, but the only answer is to stop the stuff getting into the sea in the first place.” She said a young seal with its flipper entangled in monofilament fishing net came ashore at Seaton on Sunday but unfortunately went back to sea before it could be rescued.

Winds and waves from Storm Eleanor has formed a 10ft cliff at the Perranporth beach in Cornwall

Martin Dorey, of the online campaign group #2minutebeachclean, said what had made this storm worse was that all the plastic had been dumped in one go and left beaches filthy with detritus.

Professor Richard Thompson, marine plastics expert from the University of Plymouth, said: “Any large storm will wash up material from offshore.

A seal carcass at Polhawn beach, on Whitsand Bay in South East Cornwall, among plastic waste Sally Turner

“We have used the seas as a dumping ground for centuries, and for plastics for decades. After plastic has spent some time in the sea it is colonised by marine life and sinks to the bottom, where it drifts around on the seabed until a storm washes it up.”